Well since the Colts did just win the SB, you gotta start with them. I think plenty of people would agree outside of Colts fans. But other than this year, I would agree that probably the Pats are up there along with the Colts. Both have outstanding front offices that produce SB winning teams through the draft.

I feel like this thread has grown a little stale. The "best of" or "worst of" threads are generally a chance for the homers to come out of the woodwork and make life miserable for everyone. Fact is, the NFL is awesome. Pro football's history is littered with successful franchises. Pretty much every franchise in existence right now has achieved some level of success. Hope remains high for all 32 teams.

BF51, my guess is that he has not broken the rules about terms of use, so there is no legitimate reason to ban him. Yes, TNew annoys people, but he is also contributing under the rules. Banning him for extreme douchebaggery would probably be correct, but the forum really isn't suffering due to his presence (it's just not benefitting).

I don't want to be an homer, or to argue if the Cowboys are or not the best franchise in the history of the NFL. But that's an intersting reading about why they're known as America's Team:

"After the '78 season, the Cowboys had just lost a crushing Super Bowl to the Steelers. I wanted to come up with a different twist on their team highlight film. I noticed then, and had noticed earlier, that wherever the Cowboys played, you saw people in the stands with Cowboys jerseys and hats and pennants. Plus, they were always the national game on television. If you think back, there has always been one team in each sport that has support from fans nationwide: the Yankees in baseball, Notre Dame in college football, the Boston Celtics in pro basketball. They are all America's teams. So I put that name on the Cowboys' film, and in 1979 the TV announcer for their first game introduced the Cowboys as 'America's Team.'
They took a lot of heat for it, but it stuck. Later other clubs like the Atlanta Braves and the U.S. Olympic hockey team have tried to call themselves 'America's Team.' But that name belongs to the Cowboys."

Bob Ryan, Vice President and editor-in-chief, NFL Films

It's funny how the "America's team" montra belongs to the cowboys over the US olympic hockey team, or any other US team for that matter.

__________________Hitman D

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Henry David Thoreau

The most well-run franchise IMO is the Eagles. It hasn't translated to a ring yet, but there's no reason to think it won't. They don't overspend for players, and they replace aging talent almost immediately with good drafting. Great coaching all around as well.

All time, I give it to the Packers. They arguably win it on history and success alone. But what I like the most is that they piss in the mouth, with their middle finger proudly waving in the face of the people who say that pro teams can't survive without a huge market. The fact that they are in a town of about 100,000 people, yet the waiting list for season tickets extends for generations, makes them the best franchise by itself. Proof that not only do you not need to be in a large market in order to be successful, but that being in a small market adds character and actually has it's own advantages. IMO, we should never give LA another chance at supporting a team. We should find the next Green Bay instead.

BF51, my guess is that he has not broken the rules about terms of use, so there is no legitimate reason to ban him. Yes, TNew annoys people, but he is also contributing under the rules. Banning him for extreme douchebaggery would probably be correct, but the forum really isn't suffering due to his presence (it's just not benefitting).

Great description. Though, technically, he did start spamming/flaming in the Falcons' team forum. With the usual 'Terrence Newman should have been in the Pro-Bowl, DeAngelo Hall sucks' mantra, as if any of us cared. That's against the rules, but all of his posts were deleted during one of those 'time lapses.' If not, I think that would be the necessary pretext to ban him, for something other than "extreme douchebaggery."